Strange Panda Cory color change

[torusle]

So during the last two days I noticed that all of my five Panda Corys have changed their appearance/color, and I'm a bit concerned.

They look kind of dirty in some way, like they've worked all day in a coal-mine and are covered with black dust. Their bright side of the body was never particular clear, but this is definitely a huge change. I've attached pictures of them.

Water test shows nothing to be worried about, and the Cory behaves as usual.

What I've changed in the last few weeks:

- I put the entire tank on a moderate diet starting about three weeks ago because I was overfeeding them. Had lots of snakes spawning so I decided to cut some food is a good thing. They still get something to eat every day though.

- Summer has finally arrived so the tank gets about two hours of sunlight during the day. The temperature went up from about 22°C to 24.5°C over the course of a few days.

The other fish in the tank (180 liters) show no sign of any problems. These are:

- Small school of Harlequin Rasbora
- Some old Congo tetra
- Two Panaqolus maccus

Any idea where this color change comes from? Should I be concerned or is that color-change just a Panda Cory thing.

Thnx,
Nils

[zurikitty13]

A lot of cories change color actually depending on a few factors. I've seen that my cories change color depending on two things: health and surroundings. When cories are underneath darker substrate, they will try to camouflage by changing color slightly. I got a salt and pepper cory, corydoras habrosus, and at the store, underneath white substrate and poor conditions, he was pale as a sheet. After a couple days in my new tank, which has black sand, he perked up and the whole top of him turned a pretty light brown. I've appropriately named him Brownie. My point being, I think its completely normal. If you search pictures of panda cories online, or look at the panda cory page on here: http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/spe ... ies_id=267 you can see that the top half of a lot of them have that brown/golden color that's on yours. So, I wouldn't worry.

[torusle]

Hi zurikitty13,

Thanks for the answer, and sorry for the late reply.

All pandas are still fine, some of them changed back to their brighter color when I added some new fish into the tank. So my guess right now is, that darker coloration it's actually a sign that they feel very well.